


Never Escape Your Orbit

by besully (Briar_Elwood)



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Actor!John, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Director/Writer!Flint, F/F, M/M, Masturbation, Multi, Sexuality Awakening, Smoking, Television AU, actor/director au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2019-02-19 11:53:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13123179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Briar_Elwood/pseuds/besully
Summary: James Flint is a legendary director and writer. John Silver is a little nobody actor. That is, until Flint casts Silver in his brand new show, The Pirate Queen.Tags and characters added along the way.





	1. I.

“My name is John Silver, and I happen to be a very good actor.”

The round bald man with an impressively upkept beard looks up at John with a thoroughly unimpressed purse to his lips.

“Hmph. We’ll see about that.”

John throws the casting director a brilliant grin, but the man’s expression doesn’t budge. Instead he gestures in front of him.

“Name’s Hal Gates. I assume you prepared your lines.”

“Of course,” John says, sauntering over to the spot in front of the camera Gates had indicated. The man sitting beside Gates glances up from his notebook, and John’s heart just about stops. He hadn’t realized James Flint himself was going to be at the audition.

“You’re auditioning for the role of Simon Oscar, correct?” Flint asks. John nods, hoping he’s not as twitchy as he feels. James Flint. Sitting right in front of him. The James Flint. Writer/director extraordinaire, who’d done some of the most beautiful and heart wrenching pieces of film in the past decade. The whole reason John wants to be a part of this project. This piece was a television series called “The Pirate Queen”. The Pirate Queen was the character Georgina LeClair, a fierce French woman with no fear. The part of Simon Oscar was a new crew member with a silver-tongue, a reckless young man, but he proves his worth to LeClair quickly. The other leading roles were hopeless romantic Lieutenant Timothy Ives with a grey moral compass, and Captain Livingston Eastwick, pirate hunter who was truly cunning and manipulative.

John straightens, rolling his neck to loosen up.

“We’ll start with Oscar’s introduction,” Gates says. “Three, two,” ‘one’ he mouths and hits the record button on the camera.

“What’ll you have?” Flint says, eyes fixed on the script in his lap. John holds back a sigh of relief.

“Just a pint,” he recites. “I hear Captain LeClair is recruiting right now.”

“Shush up,” Flint says. “You don’t want one of the governor’s men overhearing you.”

“The governor doesn’t scare me.”

“He should. He employs Livingston Eastwick.”

“Really?” John says, looking interested. “Eastwick’s the one who captured Matthew Laurens, isn’t he?”

“Mmm,” Flint hums. “Ruthless, he is.”

“Well, I’m not scared of Eastwick either,” John says cockily. “So Captain LeClair?”

“Her quartermaster’s over there. Just don’t draw attention to yourself--”

“Of course not,” John says, flashing a brilliant smile. He changes the space he’s acting towards. “You LeClair’s quartermaster?”

“And you are?” Flint says, sounding just as unimpressed as the quartermaster should. John can’t decide if that’s a good thing.

“Simon Oscar. I hear she’s recruiting.”

“And why, exactly, are you in need of a crew to join?”

“Got bored with my old one,” John says with a casual shrug. “Weren’t taking large enough prizes. Bunch of cowards.”

“And you’re not?”

“Oh, I’m a lily livered wretch, make no mistake,” John says with another grin. “But my love of gold overpowers my cowardice any day.”

“Appreciate the honesty,” Flint says mildly. “Still need to prove yourself.”

“Would expect nothing less.”

Gates hits the record button again with a short nod. “The pages with LeClair?”

John spreads his arms welcomingly. “Let’s do this.”

They run through the pages with LeClair and then a scene with Lieutenant Ives. It goes really well, as far as John can tell. He made Gates chuckle at least once, though Flint is nigh impossible to get a read on. He doesn’t seem disappointed at the very least. After they’re done running the pages, Gates turns off the camera one last time and returns to his seat, frowning at the paper in front of him.

“Your resume says you have experience in swordplay choreography.”

“Yes, sir,” John lies easily. Hey, who didn’t lie on their resume?

Gates nods. “That could prove useful. I think that’s all for me. James?”

Flint is busy scribbling notes down and doesn’t seem to notice Gates’s question. Gates seems to hold back a sigh and turns back to John with a tight smile.

“Thank you for y--”

“One last question,” Flint interrupts. Gates lets out the sigh and turns to Flint expectantly.

“What would you say your comfort level is concerning romantic scenes with another man?”

John blinks and then shrugs. “High comfort level.” He’s never done it before, but Flint’s work has had homoerotic plots and subplots before. The question doesn’t exactly surprise him, except he can’t imagine which character Simon Oscar would have a homoerotic subplot with. Honestly, he’d been assuming Oscar will end up with LeClair.

Flint nods curtly and goes back to scribbling notes. Gates watches him closely for a moment before turning his smile on John again.

“We’ll be in touch.”

* * *

John takes a cab back to his flat, very satisfied with his performance. All there was to do now was wait to hear from his agent, then he’ll be off to the Caribbean to start filming. When he gets home, he changes into sweatpants and a tee shirt and puts a frozen dinner in the microwave. He takes the dinner with him into his tiny living room and pulls out his favorite DVD. He’s watched it countless times before but now that he’s met the writer and director he’s curious if he can pull more from the movie, despite the little interaction they’d had.

Flint’s work was always cinematically beautiful, but this movie,  _ Stratton Audley _ , was in a class of its own. It was one of Flint’s more underappreciated films, but John loved it because he related highly with the main character, Edward. Also the love interest, Molly, was fucking hot. She had beautiful auburn hair that went well past her shoulders. Her figure was perfect, not too small and just the right amount of curve. Apparently the actor had retired to become a painter since the movie had come out over fifteen years ago, which was a shame because John would’ve loved to meet her someday.

The movie was just as good as always. It was about a man, Edward, who’d come from nowhere and started as nothing until a chance encounter leads him to meeting a successful businessman named Taylor who takes an interest in Edward’s life. They become fast friends, and Taylor coaches Edward’s into becoming his best self, eventually helping him become a renowned pianist. In the midst of everything, Edward meets Molly, Taylor’s secretary and they fall in love. John has noticed before how the love story seems to be an afterthought in the story, but he only now notices the chemistry between Edward and Taylor. The question Flint had asked at the end of the audition keeps echoing in John’s memory, and suddenly he wonders if the story would be even better if the romance had been between the two men. Even further, what if that had been Flint’s original intention?  _ Stratton Audley _ did come out early in his career and a producer or studio could’ve easily convinced Flint a gay romance wouldn’t be successful--this was before  _ Brokeback Mountain _ after all.

It was certainly food for thought, John muses as he turns off the TV and throws away the rest of his microwave dinner. He steps out on the balcony for a quick smoke before turning in for bed. As he settles into his mattress, he slips a hand past the waistband of his sweatpants, Molly filling his imagination. He stroked himself leisurely, humming into his pillow.

It was a fantasy he visited at least every time he watched  _ Stratton Audley _ . Molly on the bed below him, kissing his hips and thighs sweetly before taking him fully into her mouth. Her pretty blue eyes would blink up at him innocently. He’d run his fingers through her long auburn hair… except the hair is shorter this time. And the eyes blinking up at him are green, not blue, and a beard was tickling the inside of his thighs.

_ Flint. _

John pulls his hand out of his pants like he’d touched fire, eyes blinking open wildly. Well, that was strange and somewhat uncomfortable.

Hesitantly, he cups himself again. He’s still hard and unsatisfied, and it’s an itch that needs to be scratched at this point. He decides to try another fantasy, this one centered around his ex-girlfriend. But soon enough dark skin morphed into pale freckled skin and long, tight braids turned into golden red hair just long enough to pull on. John sighs in frustration and rolls with it. The man could be his boss in the next few days, but private fantasies never hurt anyone.

* * *

Three days later, and he’s regretting that private fantasy. Callbacks. John’s practically giddy he got called back, but Flint is pairing people off, working closely with them this time to get the scenes close to perfect. Apparently the Georgina has already been cast: Max, the actor and singer who’d recently taken the world by storm. John hasn’t seen any of her movies yet, but if Flint liked her enough to cast her after one audition, she must be good. John works off Max first, trying to pay more attention to her and Mr. Gates than the perpetually unimpressed Flint hovering around them.

The day is long and exhausting, even though most of it is spent in a room, waiting to be called in with the next Timothy Ives. He likes a few, but he hates even more. There’s one guy in particular, Ned Lowe, who just creeps John out. He can’t even put his finger on what the hell it is about the guy, except that even when they were introduced he had the same slimey smile on that he had in the scene they played. His favorite Ives by far is a man named Charles Vane, who smiles amicably when they’re introduced and plays Ives with just this side of mystery. The man would look good on a poster too: he’s practically nothing but muscle and sunkissed, long hair with a perfect nose to boot. They finish the audition by wishing each other good luck, and Vane even makes a point to say he hopes they get to work together, so John feels pretty good about the day, despite the exhaustion.

“Remember, you’re a career pirate,” Flint tells him in the last audition of the day. John can’t remember the name of the Ives he’s now playing against. Logan something? Something Logan? Whatever. Flint’s right in his personal space, a hand clasping his shoulder. “Ives is Royal Navy, and you’ve got no trust for the man whatsoever.”

John tries not to roll his eyes as Flint steps back behind the camera. He’s heard this advice about twenty times now, and really. He gets the point.

“Ready?” Gates calls out, and John gives a short nod, the Ives in front of him doing the same. “Three, two,”  _ one _ he mouths, turning the camera back on. John runs through the lines like they’re second nature, not really giving his full attention to Logan or whatever his name was. He’s gone through this scene more than enough times by now, they’re really just looking for who works best with who, and it wasn’t gonna be this guy. Instead, he’s distracted by Flint, who’s pacing back and forth, his hand over his mouth, rubbing absentmindedly at his beard. John can’t help but wonder if his beard really does tickle, or is it coarse and rough?

“So you have no connection to the pirate captain Georgina LeClair?” the Ives says, and he says it like it’s the second time he’s had to recite the line. John starts, wincing. Hopefully they could all just blame that on the long day.

“Sorry,” he says under his breath, heart pounding in his chest. Flint is looking at him with an eyebrow raised like he can tell what John was thinking about. “None whatsoever,” he says, throwing up the grin he feels like will become Oscar’s signature. “But I can point out some likely suspects, if you’d like.”

The Ives sighs, eyeing John suspiciously. Whether that’s an acting choice or not, John can’t tell. “I’m sure I’ll be fine, thank you.”

“And cut!” Gates says, voice carrying through the room. He hits the record button on the camera again before nodding at the Ives and John.

“Thank you. Mr. Logan, you may wait outside. Mr. Silver, I believe that’s all we need from you today,” Gates says with a nod at John. “We’ll be in touch.”

John nods. “Thank you,” he says quickly, before hurrying out of that room, feeling Flint’s eyes on him the entire way. Private fantasies never hurt anyone, yeah right. But there was no way that one slip up could ruin his entire audition, right? He’d killed it the rest of the day, especially that scene with that Vane guy. The part is his, there’s no doubt about it.

* * *

“You didn’t get the part.”

John stares at his phone in disbelief where his agent, Madi Scott, looks up at him with a face that says clearly “I told you not to get your hopes up”.

“Who the fuck got it?” he asks, still trying to wrap his head around the fact he won’t be on his way to the Caribbean in the next week or so. Madi looks down to check her notes.

“A man named… Richard Cooke,” she replies patiently.

“Dick,” John says without hesitation, but Madi just stares at him, unamused. John lets his shoulders fall. “Oh, c’mon, that was funny.”

“You’ve put all your eggs in this series, John,” she says instead. “You wouldn’t take any other auditions. Will you start looking at other roles now? You need a job.”

“I need this job!” John argues. “I’ve gotta work with James Flint, Madi, you don’t understand--”

“I understand,” she interrupts, looking like she’s barely holding her tongue. “But there will be other opportunities to work with him in the future. It just looks like it won’t be this time.”

“Fucking hell,” John mutters, taking a long drag from his cigarette. “Fucking shit-covered hell.”

Madi rolls her eyes. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“What’s that?” John asks, barely looking at his phone. He knows what her expression looks like, he doesn’t need to see it for himself.

“Are you going to start looking at other roles now?” Madi says, a touch of impatience entering her voice. “You haven’t had a job in months. You’ve gotta get the ball rolling again.”

“Hmm,” John says, taking another drag and watching the smoke curl as it drifts away into the breeze.

“What about something simple? They’re doing  _ A Streetcar Named Desire _ downtown this upcoming season. You’d have to brush off your American accent, but I think it’d be good for you.”

John shakes his head dismissively. “I don’t want to do something on the stage. I want a television series, I want to be able to build a character over the months.”

“Well, it is the season for new series,” Madi says. “Granted, it’s always the season these days, but still. You can have your pick, really.”

“My pick is  _ The Pirate Queen _ .”

Madi sighs. “Your second pick, then.”

“What if we could get rid of… Dick Cooke, you said his name was?” John says, sitting up a little.

“Richard,” Madi corrects. “How would we do that?”

“At the end of the initial audition, Flint asked about my comfort level with romantic scenes with another man,” he says, looking back at his phone excitedly. Madi still doesn’t look impressed.

“And you said?”

“I said I was down with it, of course,” John says before shaking his head. “That’s not the point. The point is presumably he asked that question to all the Oscars he liked, right?”

“Presumably.”

“Which means that there’s going to be some sort of romance between Oscar and another man, right?”

“Again, presumably.”

“So what if it came out that Dick Cooke was a raging homophobe?” John says, grinning. Madi blinks at him.

“Richard,” she corrects again. “Presumably he said he didn’t have a problem with it either. How could he be a homophobe?”

“What if he just said that to get the part?”

Madi sighs heavily, rolling her eyes. “You have no way of knowing that, so why don’t you just get to the point, John?”

“You’ve got friends in the tabloids. Have them ‘leak’ a story about Richard Cooke having been… convicted of a hate crime or something. Make it juicy.”

“That could ruin the man’s career.”

“Yeah.”

“And you have no idea if you’re second choice for the part.”

“I am, I swear to god.”

Madi eyes him for a moment, and John throws up a grin at her. It’s worked in the past, that grin. Of course, that was a few years ago, but still.

“You’re willing to ruin a man’s career, possibly his life, in order to  _ maybe _ get this part?”

“Yes,” John says without hesitation. Madi shakes her head.

“This is why we aren’t dating anymore.”

“Harsh!” John says, bringing his hand to his heart and pulling a wounded expression. “Will you do it?”

Madi sighs heavily again. “I’ll talk to my friends, see what they can do.”

“Yes!” John bursts, pumping his fist into the air. “You’re the best Madi, you know I love you. I wouldn’t make it in this world without you.”

“Oh, believe me, I know,” Madi says without the slightest hint of amusement. “Watch the tabloids. I’ll call you if I get any news.”


	2. II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flint is righteously outraged.

“Why the Caribbean?” Jack asks, feet propped up on his desk. Flint tries not to growl, he really does.

“Because that’s where the story takes place,” he says, as patiently as possible. “We’ve been through this. The location has already been set.”

“I know, I know, I’m just wondering if we can’t change it to somewhere less expensive. South Africa?”

“The film crew is already setting up in Port Royal,” Flint points out. “It’d cost more to move them at this point.”

“True,” Jack concedes. Flint relaxes. He knew he’d regret it when Jack Rackham picked up his script and decided he liked it. The man was only concerned about making the biggest splash on the smallest dime. But he’d also been the only one interested in a story with a female pirate captain and polyamory, the latter being closely held secret for now.

“What about the ships?” Jack asks. “Do we really need to build all of them?”

“It’s to make the show feel more real,” Flint says. “And they’re already almost done constructing The Augustine.”

“But what about the rest of them?” Jack pushes. “I mean, most of the time will be spent on The Augustine, why build the rest?”

Flint opens his mouth to argue, but there’s a hesitant knock on the door. Jack sighs heavily, pulling his feet off the table.

“Come in.”

From behind the door peeked Jack’s Personal Assistant, Augustus Featherstone, looking nervous. Quietly, he walks up to Jack’s desk and puts what looks like a tabloid magazine in front of him.

“This just came out today,” Featherstone says. “I thought you’d want to know.”

Jack leans forward to peer at the cover, frowning. Then he sighs and hands it over to Flint.

SORDID PAST, the headline reads with a picture of Richard Cooke, their Simon Oscar, looking extremely harried, ACTOR RICHARD COOKE CONVICTED OF HATE CRIME EIGHT YEARS AGO.

Quickly, Flint snatches the magazine from Jack’s hand and flips through to the story, skimming through it. It says Cooke had been convicted of severely beating a gay man, to the point of putting him in a coma for seven months. It has quotes from the gay man verifying the story, and the phrase “Mr. Cooke and his agent were unavailable for comment”. Flint tosses the tabloid on the table with disgust, sinking into his chair in despair.

“It’s the tabloids,” Jack says calmingly. “It could be a fake. Slow news day.”

“It’s the tabloids,” Flint shoots back. “Everyone and their son is gonna see it as they wait in line at the store.”

“The man’s already on set, what can we do about it?”

“I’m not having my show associated with this man!” Flint barks, stabbing his finger at the picture of Cooke.

“So you want to replace him this late in the game?”

“Yes!”

Jack glares at him, and Flint sighs, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. “I’ll talk with Gates, we’ll get it figured out.”

“Twenty-four hours, Flint. That’s all I’m giving you.”

“I’ll have a new name to you in six.”

* * *

“Hal!” Flint barks, storming over to where the casting director sits in a couch, absentmindedly reading a book. Gates looks up, startled, his book flying to the floor, and frowns at Flint.

“What?” he snaps, leaning over to pick up his book. Flint tosses the tabloid at Gates.

“Look at this shit.”

Gates pulls out his reading glasses and peers at the magazine, flipping through to the story just as Flint had. He looks up after a moment, an eyebrow creeping high up his forehead.

“I assume we’re recasting?”

“No shit.”

Gates sighs and places a bookmark in his book before setting it down. He reaches over to a spot next to the couch and pulls out a big black binder that Flint knows well. This is part of the reason he and Gates work so well together--Hal is always prepared.

“Anyone in mind?” he asks, flipping through the pages to the Simon Oscar section.

“Who was on the short list?”

“Ah… there’s Dylan Logan, who also auditioned for Ives. John Silver, he was good. Jacob Garrett was interesting. Anthony Singleton was also a strong candidate.”

Flint grimaces and shakes his head. “I didn’t like Singleton. He was too harsh for Oscar.”

“Garrett?” Gates offers. “He’s certainly attractive enough for Oscar.”

“Mm,” Flint hums. “Which one was Silver again?”

“He was the one who came in all cocky. He blundered one of his scenes with Ives a bit,” Gates says, running a finger down Silver’s file. “Oh, he did work well with Vane. Better than Cooke did, actually.”

“Really?” Flint says, coming around to take a look at the file himself. He scans it quickly, remembering the curly haired boy with bright blue eyes. “Why didn’t we cast him in the first place then?”

“Well, because of the blunder, and because Cooke’s far more experienced,” Gates says. “Also he seemed nervous around you.”

Flint just smirks at that. Ah, yes, the boy had seemed nervous. It was almost amusing at the time and definitely amusing now. But he would do. He would do nicely. Flint nods sharply.

“Give his agent a call right away. I’ll let Featherstone know once you’ve made the call.”

“So Jack can’t do anything about it, of course,” Gates says with a gentle roll of his eyes. “Is that all?”

“Yeah. We’ll fly out Silver as soon as we can get him on a plane and send Cooke packing. This’ll work out.”

* * *

It pisses him off, it really does. The idea that Cooke would have the gall to lie to him about his comfort levels when it comes to romantic scenes with other men. What could possibly possess a man to lie about that? Sure, maybe he was desperate for the job, but wouldn’t he realize that it would eventually lead to some uncomfortable scenes? What had he been planning to do? Refuse to cooperate, make Flint change the entire script? He probably thought nothing would happen until season two, and then it would be too late to replace him, and ugh. The whole thing is just… infuriating. Bigots. Flint hates them.

And honestly, he doesn’t even want them watching the show. Not only does he not want the eventual social media backlash, he just doesn’t want bigots to watch the show in the first place. How can he make sure that happens?

Flint’s pacing in his workroom, fuming over the whole situation when inspiration hits him. Jack is gonna kill him for this, but it’s a sure way to make sure bigots don’t even make it past episode one. He sits at his desk in a rush, pulling open his laptop. It’s time to make some changes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the short chapter.


End file.
